Communography in Phyllis Naidoo’s “Charlie and Jo”

Abstract

Phyllis Naidoo’s Footprints beyond Grey Street (2007) adjusts conventional boundaries of the autobiographical genre: it is written by Naidoo but appears not to be principally concerned with the author’s life. It is written largely about her comrades in the African National Congress who were in exile in African countries. Of the stories in Naidoo’s “autobiography”, “Charlie and Jo” in particular epitomises the absence of the author: a stylistic and generic anomaly which merits particular attention and thus forms the focus of this article. This memory-tale of social recollection evidences autobiographical self-displacement: the privileging of collective memory as opposed to an individual’s nostalgic journey towards self-definition. This foregrounding of a collective identity has been identified and termed communography in the writings of comparable political groups such as the Irish Republican Army.

Opsomming

Phyllis Naidoo se Footprints beyond Grey Street (2007) verskuif die konvensionele grense van die outobiografie-genre: dit is deur Naidoo geskryf, maar dit kom voor asof dit nie primêr met die skrywer se lewe gemoeid is nie. Dit handel grotendeels oor haar comrades in die African National Congress wat in ballingskap in Afrika-lande was. Van al die stories in Naidoo se “outobiografie” staan “Charlie and Jo” veral uit wat betref die afwesigheid van die skrywer: ’n stilistiese en genre anomalie wat besondere aandag verdien en daarom die fokus van hierdie artikel vorm.  Hierdie geheue-vertelling van sosiale terugroeping is ’n goeie voorbeeld van outobiografiese self-verplasing: die vooropstelling van kolletiewe geheue eerder as die nostalgiese reis van ’n individu na self-definiëring. Hierdie beklemtoning van ’n kollektiewe identiteit is geïdentifiseer en benoem as “communography” in die skryfwerk van vergelykbare politieke groepe soos die Ierse Republikeinse Leër.